SOUTH AFRICA: I Do Not Choose to Drink

Like U.S. Presidents before F.D.R., the
rain queens who rule over the Lovedu tribesmen in Africa's northern
Transvaal are expected voluntarily to limit their own terms of office.
When a rain queen's powers are on the wane (at the age of 60 or
thereabouts), tradition calls for her to retire into the hills and
quaff a poison compounded of crocodile entrails. This was the way it
was in the days of Mujaji I and in the days of Mujaji II (the
light-skinned queen who served as a model for H. Rider Haggard's
all-powerful She) who dutifully killed herself in...